The Doctor's Diet: Dr. Travis Stork's STAT Program to Help You Lose Weight & Restore Your Health (5 page)

Part of that oath that physicians take when we receive our medical degrees addresses the topic of food—it asks doctors to “apply dietetic measures for the benefit of the sick.” Hippocrates, the father of Western medicine, was way ahead of his time in the fifth century BC when he recognized the crucial role that diet played in optimal health and wrote the words, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food.” Those words have never been truer than they are now, with hundreds of thousands of Americans dying prematurely each year because of the foods they eat.

When patients leave the emergency room, they usually walk out with a handful of prescriptions and appointments for follow-up visits with their doctors. The medical care providers in the ER save lives with STAT treatment, but once the patients are stabilized, they work with their own doctors to figure out a long-term plan to restore their health.

The prescriptions most doctors issue are for medications. But when a doctor medicates problems such as heart disease and diabetes without suggesting major changes to a patient’s diet, the patient is missing out on a big part of his or her treatment. In order to really fight these health problems and restore robust health, patients need a different kind of prescription—one that recommends an entirely new way of eating.

I call these recommendations my Doctor’s Diet Food Prescriptions.

These Food Prescriptions lay the foundation for all phases of The Doctor’s Diet. You can start following them today and let them be your dietary North Star for the rest of your life, both in the active STAT and RESTORE Plans of The Doctor’s Diet, and then during the MAINTAIN Plan that will see you through years of your best possible health.

This is just what the ancient doctor, Hippocrates, ordered: an exploration of the specific ways in which food can be your best medicine when it comes to rescuing yourself from diet-related disease. In this part of the book, we’ll look at the various components of a healthy diet, and I’ll explain the science behind how they help prevent disease and prolong life. I’ll also give specific advice about how to make smart choices about these foods and how best to include them in your diet.

After you “stop the bleeding” on your unhealthy diet and kick-start dramatic weight loss with the STAT Plan, you’ll shift for 14 days to the less-intense RESTORE Plan. On the RESTORE Plan, you will continue to lose weight while enjoying a wider range of foods. If you meet your goal weight during the RESTORE Plan, you’ll move on to the MAINTAIN Plan. If not, you’ll alternate between STAT and RESTORE until you achieve your goal.

In this section of the book, I’ll tell you
how
all the smart choices you’re making with The Doctor’s Diet are making you feel better, stronger, sexier, and healthier by extending your life, preventing diseases (including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, arthritis, and some kinds of cancer), boosting your immune system, revving up your mood and your energy, easing your sleep, and even improving the health of your family for generations to come.

Once you’ve met your weight-loss goal, my MAINTAIN Plan will help you keep the weight off for the rest of your life. The MAINTAIN Plan makes it easy to stay slim with a greater variety of food choices—including many of your favorite foods—and strategies that let you enjoy delicious meals without gaining back all the weight you worked so hard to lose.

We cap off the book with a delicious set of flavorful, easy-to-make recipes that are bursting with fantastic flavor and amazing health benefits. Enjoy fabulous Doctor’s Diet versions of chicken parmesan, lasagna, pizza, and more. These recipes, which call for everyday ingredients you may already have on hand, will become your new favorites.

W
ith The Doctor’s Diet, I focus on how improving your daily eating habits can have a huge impact on your weight and your health. I shine the spotlight on food because, when weight is a health emergency requiring immediate lifestyle treatment, changing your diet is the best place to start. Eating meals with fewer calories and the right combinations of fat-burning foods is the fastest way to kick-start major weight loss.

However, even though a healthy diet is the centerpiece of my program, I do want you to know that exercise is extremely important as well.

All of the changes you are making as part of The Doctor’s Diet will be exponentially more successful if you include exercise in your daily life. Every measure of your success—weight loss, lower risk of chronic disease, greater longevity, and improved overall health—will be amplified if you increase your activity levels.

Exercise does amazing things for your body. In addition to helping with weight loss, being active lowers your risk of heart disease, certain cancers, type 2 diabetes, osteoporosis, and depression. It helps strengthen your muscles, improves the health of your organs, boosts your mood, and sharpens your brain. The list of exercise’s benefits is almost endless.

Because this book focuses on diet, I’m not going to go into detail about training routines, complicated workout strategies, specific exercises, or the many options you can consider when designing a fitness regimen. I don’t want to overwhelm you—by following The Doctor’s Diet, you’re
already making so many incredible improvements to your health. Trying to do too much may backfire on you and erode your motivation. I really don’t want that to happen!

Right now, taking on the challenge of starting an ambitious new exercise regimen isn’t necessary. I do want you to be active, but there’s no need to devote hours and hours every week to going to the gym, training for marathons, or becoming a champion mountain biker (although, of course, you’re welcome to do that, if you’d like).

My exercise prescription is simple: move your body for at least 30 minutes a day, every day, and try to decrease the amount of time you are sitting throughout the day.

Choose activities you enjoy. Walk, jog, swim, cycle, hit the treadmill—do whatever you like, as long as you’re getting your heart rate up for half an hour a day. When you’re ready, try to add in strength training (using weights or your own body weight as resistance) two or three times a week.

But for now, especially if you are just starting out, going for a half-hour walk every day is just right.

If you’re very sedentary or obese, the idea of walking half an hour may unnerve you. That’s OK—you don’t have to start there. Begin with a five-minute walk, if that’s what you can comfortably do. Walk five minutes a day during Week One. Then increase it to 10 minutes a day in Week Two. By Week Six, you’ll hit your half-hour goal.

As you get fitter and begin to shed pounds, you will feel so good that you’ll
want
to move around more. You’ll feel stronger, healthier, and more energetic, able to climb stairs without huffing and puffing. You’ll find yourself drawn eagerly to more activities, such as gardening, dancing (even if it’s by yourself in your living room!), hiking, going for bike rides, or playing with your children or grandchildren.

When all that starts to happen, and you’re interested in launching a formal fitness plan, go for it. Or you can just increase the intensity of your daily walks by going farther, faster, or more frequently.

T
he Doctor’s Diet begins with the STAT Plan, which you can start following at your very next meal. The STAT plan is created to give you immediate results. From the moment you bite into your very first STAT Plan meal, you’ll be eating meals that are balanced for high-level fat burn and major health benefits.

STAT Plan breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks are designed according to specifically formulated daily Meal Plan Equations, which are created to help jump-start weight loss. They are moderately high in protein, contain smart amounts of unsaturated fat and omega-3 fats, are rich in dietary fiber, and are low in simple carbohydrates and unhealthy fats.

My Meal Plan Equations also give you flexibility. Some of us love big breakfasts and smaller dinners; others prefer eating light in the morning and filling up at lunch or when the mid-afternoon hunger pangs strike. You know your body best, and you know your hungriest times of day. My daily Meal Plan Equations allow you to make choices that will be the most satisfying to you.